LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS.' 
373 
to be as deficient in those virtues as an English bishop in humi¬ 
lity—a courtier in sincerity—a nun in chastity—or an author 
in riches. It might have been supposed that, from the time 
when Capt. Ross left “ the heath-covered mountains of Scotia,” 
to that most auspicious moment of his life, when he found him¬ 
self Commander of the Victory in Felix Harbour, the experience 
must, at some particular period of that time, have burst upon 
him, that a more fallacious criterion of the intrinsic goodness 
and virtue of an individual cannot be consulted, than the form 
of visage, with which it has pleased nature to endow him ; but 
notwithstanding, that the truth of that position amounts to al 
most proverbial validity, yet there are very few, who are not 
regulated by it in their estimation of the character of the indi¬ 
vidual, with whom he is suddenly thrown into contact, and who 
does not in some measure regulate his conduct according to the 
opinion, which he may then have prematurely, and unjustly 
formed. The four ill-favoured Esquimaux had no sooner pre¬ 
sented themselves before Capt. Ross, than in his own mind, he 
determined them to be consummate thieves, and that they had 
like the gypsies, pitched their dwelling in his vicinity, as hold¬ 
ing out the greatest prospect of carrying on their buccaneering 
exploits to the utmost profit and advantage. It was in vain to tell 
him that their peculiar physiognomy was as natural to them, as 
red hair and high cheek bones were to the natives of his own coun¬ 
try ; it was a direct loss of time, to expostulate with him on the 
injustice and impropriety of holding a man to be a thief, before 
he had given some distinct proofs that the character really be¬ 
longed to him ; and further, that as he professed to be a Christ¬ 
ian, it was acting in a most unchristian-like manner, to mete 
out his judgement according to any other principle than that, 
in which he should wish that judgement should be meted out 
to him. These arguments might have been considered as some¬ 
what worthy of attention, but they all yielded to the prejudice, 
which he had imbibed, and to the irrevocable opinion which he { 
had formed, that the four Esquimaux were the canaille of their 
race, and in the depth of their degeneracy had just selected 
